**** outta *****

4 outta 5

Bad Times at the El Royale is a long, strange trip of double and triple crosses and mysterious secrets hiding mysterious secrets. Frankly, it is probably too long and too many secrets. Writer/director Drew Goddard (The Cabin the Woods) is obviously in love with the late ‘60s aesthetic and music and his enthusiasm is infectious. There is definitely a lot of Quentin Tarantino influence here, the closest being that it has strangers with secrets in a lodge like The Hateful Eight. Also, like Tarantino, there are a lot classic pop tunes and bloodshed. Bad Times never reaches the insanity genre-bending madness of Cabin, insteadthis is an exercise in noir archetypes and it does so very, very well.

Father Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has arrived at the El Royale hotel and casino, an interstate casino that borders both California and Nevada right down the middle, overseen by Miller (Lewis Pullman). Other guests include the fast talking Seymour (Jon Hamm), singer Darlene (Cynthia Erivo) and the mysterious and terse Emily (Dakota Johnson). Seymour discovers the hotel is bugged and there is even a back passage with two-way mirrors into the rooms. Meanwhile, Emily has kidnapped her brainwashed sister, Ruth (Cailee Spaeny) from a freaky hippy cult led by Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth). All converge on the El Royale for a long, bloody night of deception and gunfire.

The hotel between two states is a cool idea. There best part is the introductory scene where Miles lays out the rules; rooms on the California side cost a dollar more, gambling is only on the Nevada side, but they can only drink on the California side. There is also sweet visual design with the red line down the middle and each side of the hotel is a different colour. At one point, Billy gets in a great quip where he says that they have to deal with problems over in Nevada and just points to the other side of the lobby. The secret corridor behind the rooms is very effective as with a flick of a switch a person can listen in. There are a lot of voyeuristic shots of people simply walking in the hallway and seeing weird actions behind closed doors. 

Everyone in this movie is hiding something which sort of devalues the twists. Happily, the actors are all pretty great. Bridges manages to straddle a line between compassionate as his priest is slowly losing his mind and complete evil. He is paired mostly with Erivo’s Darlene who is just trying to survive so she can get along with her singing career. Her singing scenes are good as she displays a lot of emotion but the movie has her singing a wee bit too much.

Pullman as the drug addled and guilt ridden bellhop Miller is supposed to be sympathetic but his constantly begging the priest for redemption gets a little wearying. Thankfully, Pullman is a pretty good actor so he sells it. Hamm as the fast talking salesman with a big secret gets to be the hero. He is at the centre of some of the movie’s best twists and scenes, like when he uncovers the ridiculous amount of recording devices in his room.  

Hemsworth is using his frequent shirtlessness for evil to seduce people to his cult which is rather unsettling. He makes for a great bad guy as he smiles and acts very nonchalant about the horrible ideology he’s spewing like Charles Manson. He gets positively demonic in his overbearing inquisition of the guests which leads to some very intense moments. Spaeny is creepily effective as his brainwashed minion even though her sister keeps trying to reach her. As the sister, Johnson is a femme fatale which is standard in noir movies. The only time there is sympathy for her are the few flashbacks of seeing her sister brainwashed by Billy. Johnson plays it very cold which makes her actions unpredictable. It’s hard to say she’s a hero but she sometimes seems slightly less evil than others.

Drew Goddard writes quite a lot of movies, Cloverfield, The Martian, and he created the Daredevil TV series but this is only his 2^nd feature film.  Both of his movies are great and hopefully he does more. He favours long takes that are compelling and draw the viewer into scenes. It does seem a little excessively showy but noir movies can get away with being showy. The movie also has a hell of a lot of musical bits which are good but there are quite a lot which sometimes gets in the way of the gleeful bloodshed. Also there are only so many ‘60s and ‘50s music needle drops of pop hits until they start to lose their effectiveness. Goddard lets the actors put in lots of monologues about their characters’ lives which fleshes them out, although it does drag on the pace. But generally most monologues are punctuated with effective violence.

Bad Times at the El Royale is an unabashedly noir thriller that may take it’s time but the payoff is grand. It frequently meanders down flashbacks and narrative jumps but all of the pieces satisfying fall into place. It’s a great ensemble film with big actors engaging in craziness. And murder! And singing!